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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Something for the blog. Note: I don't believe this story at all. But it's neat.

Strange Phenomenon.

“A strange Phenomenon has made its appearance in Van Buren County, Arkansas. Some people call it a horse, while others affirm that it is a man. At any rate, nothing in natural history can account for it. Its head has every semblance of a horse’s, while its body is unmistakably that of a man. When first seen it was standing in a road with its head over the fence, looking intently at a man plowing in the field. There was something so wild in the expression of the supposed horse’s eyes, and such a snap to his eyelids, producing such a peculiar sound, that the man left the plow and went up to the fence. His surprise and terror at seeing a horse’s head on a man’s shoulders knew no bounds, but his legs did, and springing away he ran toward the house. The man-horse, seeing that the plowman “fleed” when no man-horse “pursueth,” climbed over the fence and walked to the plow, took up the lines and started the horse. The owner had witnessed this, having stopped. Gathering courage he went back slowly and cautiously, approaching the most peculiar freak of nature he had ever seen. When he had come within a few yards of the plow, the man-horse stopped, turned, and remarked:

“’You seem afraid of me. Approach.’

The man felt impelled by some unaccountable power, and when he was within a few feet of the man-horse experienced a slight sensation in his feet, and looking down discovered that instead of feet he had a pair of hoofs. He had evidently exchanged with his horse, for instead of hoofs on the front the horse had human feet, and seemed equally as much dissatisfied with them as the man did with the hoofs. After performing this piece of magic the man-horse ran away. It may be necessary to add that the man to whom the phenomenon presented the hoofs is known in the neighborhood as a ‘Guinea nigger’ [i.e., he was a house-servant rather than a field slave]. His plow-horse has not been seen since that memorable day. The man still retains his hoofs, and was last seen at a blacksmith-shop having himself shod. He knows them to be the hoofs of the horse, for there are marks on them that render unmistakable recognition. This story, a neighborhood superstition, does not come in a roundabout way, but down the Fort Smith Railroad, one of the straightest roads in the South. It will not, however, take its place in a library of Sunday-school fiction. It is stated, and with some degree of truth, that the old negro, suffering from elephantiasis, became crazy and started the story.”

Days after endorsing the killing of more wolves, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has added the wolverine to his hit list in the war on endangered species.

With just 300 of the animals left, scientists predict wolverines will disappear from the United States unless something is done right now to save them. But just yesterday, Salazar refused to give them federal protection on the Endangered Species list.

Listing a species as "endangered" makes killing it illegal, requires that habitat reserves essential to its recovery be designated and protected, and makes federal restoration money available. It puts conservation agencies and scientists in charge of the wolverine’s future, not loggers and developers.

And it works: Species put on the endangered list are far less likely to go extinct and far more likely to recover than species left waiting without protection.

The Center successfully sued the Bush government in 2008 for refusing to help wolverines, handing the Obama administration a great opportunity to reverse course and save the species. But yesterday -- just as he did with wolves, grizzlies and polar bears -- Salazar instead repeated the anti-environmental policies of the Bush administration, dismissing federal scientists who rate threats to the wolverine as "high magnitude."

We have the best win rate in the environmental movement, succeeding in 93 percent of our legal cases and achieving real, on-the-ground protection for more than 500 imperiled plants and animals and more than 200 million acres of habitat.

With your help we'll save the wolverine, Pacific fisher, gray wolf and all 250 imperiled species being denied the protection they need to survive and recover.

P.S. Here's a news story from today about our work to save the wolverine.

Feds: Wolverines need protection but have to waitNational Public Radio // December 14, 2010

HELENA, Mont. - The threat of climate change warrants classifying wolverines as threatened or endangered, but other species are in more imminent danger and will delay protection for the small, ferocious mammals, wildlife officials said Monday...

That means the animals will not be added to the federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants. Instead, it will join the sage grouse, plains bison and hundreds of other species on a candidate species list awaiting federal protection.

Wolverines need adequate spring snow cover to reproduce, but warmer winter temperatures are reducing the snow pack in the West, making climate change the "primary threat to the wolverine population," the report said.

The length of time the wolverine remains on the candidate list depends on the species ahead of it and when funding would be available to add it to the endangered and threatened species list, Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Diane Katzenberger said.

The wolverine is one of a handful species the federal government says needs protection because of the effects of climate change on habitat. Most recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cited the loss of ice from climate change as a basis for proposing that ringed and bearded seals be listed as a threatened species.

Conservation groups petitioned the federal government to protect the wolverine in 1995 and again in 2000. Two years ago, the agency found the wolverine was not eligible for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act because it did not constitute a distinct population segment.

Conservationists sued, and last year the agency agreed to study the matter again. This time, the agency found the population within the contiguous U.S. was distinct and warranted protection....

Wolverine photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/MatthiasKabel.

This message was sent to richard@cfz.org.uk.

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As regular readers will know, I am somewhat of a fan of a bloke called John Allison who is responsible for a rather marvellous webcomic called Bad Machinery. He also talks a lot of sense. In a recent interview he said something that actually encapsulated most of what we are doing with this blog:

"People’s attention spans are knackered. The internet has become a Las Vegas casino, a comfortable, noisy area designed to keep you disorientated and keep you spending money. Good luck trying to find attention with longform work. But I think there’s a sense now that we have to push back in the opposite direction, that people don’t want to read articles surrounded by video ads and animation".

On this day in 1773 a ship full of perfectly good tea was thrown into Boston Harbour in an anti-tax protest. Whereas the sentiment behind the protest was quite noble this also had the unforeseen consequence that tea companies would no longer send their best tea to North America, so coffee became the American drink of choice.

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CFZ APPEAL

In November Sahar Dimus, our guide on four CFZ Sumatra expeditions, died of liver failure leaving a widow Lucy and four Children. On the 2nd November, Dezyama D. Sangma, wife of our friend and colleague Dipu Marak, our collaborator on the 2010 Indian expedition died, leaving her grieving husband and two small children.

This year's CFZ appeal is to raise money for their two families. Please be generous.